


weight off my shoulders

by lovevalley45



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Gen, Haircuts, Light Angst, Post-Season/Series 05, everyone has their way of dealing with grief: the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:48:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29191053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovevalley45/pseuds/lovevalley45
Summary: An unfortunate realization leads to a late night makeover.
Relationships: Behrad Tomaz | Behrad Tarazi & Zari Tomaz | Zari Tarazi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	weight off my shoulders

**Author's Note:**

> so if u follow me on here and on tumblr, this fic probably looks pretty familiar. but i wanted to post it here (of course, with a lil bit of editing, bc it's been a few months)  
> this was before those set pictures of tala rocking the short hair for zari got released n i included the detail of her having short hair in a diff fic, but then when i was trying to write smth happy i got this sorta sad idea n said. well now i HAVE to write it. so yeah. enjoy

Every time Zari looked in the mirror these days, her mind went elsewhere. 

She hadn’t been identical to her doppelganger much in the scheme of things - her undyed hair, her love of flannels, the exhausted look no amount of concealer could hide. But whenever she saw her reflection, she thought of her. 

Part of her wondered if everyone else saw it too. Did they see the other Zari first, then their vision cleared and it was her?

It was after a mission one night, when she was about to take off her makeup that she got tired of it. She ran a hand through her hair - it had been a while since she touched up her highlights, leaving her hair looking darker than usual. More like her other self’s. 

Zari’s breath had caught in her throat. It was hard not to see  _ her _ face staring back at her, rather than her own. It was a odd sort of feeling to miss someone that you’d basically replaced.

She didn’t think much as she tied up her hair and made her way to Behrad’s room, knocking so hard on the metal door that her knuckles hurt. 

The door opened to reveal her brother, already in his pajamas. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Is something on fire?”

“No,” Zari said. “Can I- come in?”

“Uh, sure.” He moved aside to let her in.

“I know it’s late but-” She didn’t even know what had come over her, really, when she asked, “Can you cut my hair?”

Behrad blinked. “Cut your hair?” he repeated.

“I just keep seeing her in the mirror,” Zari told him, not looking him in the eye.

They both missed the other Zari. Well, everyone did, but in a different way. She was with them, in the totem, of course. They didn’t have memories of her like the other Legends did. But she’d sacrificed herself for both of them to exist in this timeline, for them to have the happy life she couldn’t.

“Oh.” He took a deep breath, scratching the side of his chin. The fluorescent lights of the Waverider glinted off of the Air Totem on his wrist. “I mean, I’m not a professional but… yeah. Okay.”

She ended up sitting on a stool in the bathroom he formerly shared with Charlie, an old towel draped over her shoulders to catch the clippings. Zari had a feeling she’d regret it in the morning, until she looked it the mirror.

Behrad looked more nervous than she did when he came in. “How short are we talking here, Z?”

“Uh…” She reached up to run her fingers through her hair again, trying to decide. “Maybe here?” she asked, stopping just where her hair hit her shoulders. 

“I can work with that,” he said. 

Zari closed her eyes when he cut off the first chunk of hair. There was no turning back now, she thought. But still, the small release as she heard the snip felt like a relief, like the first taste of chilly autumn air after an boiling hot summer.

For his initial apprehensiveness, her brother wasn’t doing too bad of a job from what she could see. But he broke the silence by asking, “So, why not ask John to do this? Didn’t he drop out of beauty school or something?”

“Spur of the moment thing,” she answered, which was a nice way of saying  _ I was about to have a breakdown in my bedroom _ . “I’ll ask him to touch it up in the morning if I really have to.”

“Wow, such faith in my abilities,” Behrad said. He was quiet for a moment, carefully ruminating his words. “I’ve had those nights too.”

She wished she hadn’t left her room in such a rush and left her phone behind as she missed with the ring on her pinky. “I just don’t want them to see her when they look at me. Like, I think Nate does, and Mick,” she admitted. “It’s kinda hard to feel like my own person when I look like a replacement.” 

“Good thing that short hair suits you, I guess,” he said. “Now they’ll just see… you.”

Zari smiled. “Yeah.”

By the time he finished, she didn’t feel like she was looking the other her in the face when she looked in the mirror. In terms of her usual haircuts, it would probably get barely one out of five stars. 

But she ran her hands through it and fluffed it out, until it looked more decent.

“Thanks, B,” she told him.

“I won’t even ask for a tip,” he joked and patted her shoulder. 

The next morning, when she walked into the galley Ava said, “I swear your hair wasn’t that short last night.”

She glanced at Behrad, who was making breakfast for the team, then turned back to her with a smile. “Yeah, I just thought… it’s easier to deal with short hair, you know? Less maintenance.”

Ava didn’t look that convinced as she took a sip of her coffee. “Huh.” She smiled. “I mean- yeah. Probably. I actually considered getting an undercut once but it wasn’t ‘professional’.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about professional now,” Behrad said from the stove. “Maybe it’s time to try something new.”

As Zari watched him try to cajole her into an undercut, she felt lighter, and not just from the inches she’d gotten chopped off. She caught her reflection in the glass door of the refrigerator, just barely, and saw her - all her. 

**Author's Note:**

> hey it'd be really nice if u left a kudo and maybe even a comment, u know we writers love to be showered in praise lmao  
> if u want to see more of my writing that doesn't necessarily make it over here to ao3, u can follow me on tumblr at lovevalley45. i'm working on a longer fic that i'm hoping to post soon, but quarantine and this long ass hiatus has extinguished my writing passion n i still have college so. fingers crossed there lol. if u stuck around to read this long into the end note uh stay stabby and have a nice day y'all


End file.
